


Until Dawn

by shalako



Series: Again, but a little bit to the left [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Bathing/Washing, Belle-bashing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Malcolm-bashing, Parent/Child Incest, Sharing a Bed, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 03:41:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20419325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shalako/pseuds/shalako
Summary: Mr. Gold has been missing for seven months and Belle has comfortably settled into her new position as a grieving widow. Archie can't help but think a few snide thoughts about her when Mr. Gold stumbles out of the forest one night and into Archie's backyard, miraculously alive.





	Until Dawn

It’s easy to trace his relationship with Belle back to one simple point: that Gold is lesser. He says he is a monster, unworthy, and rather than deny it, she places herself on a pedestal, paints herself as his savior, his angel — yes, you are a monster, but I love you anyway.

Every fight, every separation is the same. He fails to meet her standards. He does something she disagrees with. And she leaves him — she yells at him first, uses all his weaknesses against him (as insults, in this case), and allows him to grovel but never to explain himself. Then she leaves, and she only comes back when Gold comes crawling to her, ready to meet her on her terms.

There is no compromise. Gold _ will _ meet her standards, instantly, without question, or she _ will _ leave him. Somehow, Archie doesn’t find it the best way to deal with a man so full of abandonment issues. He watches them from afar — in public, Mr. Gold seems completely reformed. Still cold and still distant, but willing to work with people on their problems, willing to help someone in need. Yet Belle and he are always fighting, always finding a sin he’s hidden from her, and it only gets worse after the kidnapping.

Mr. Gold is gone for seven months and Belle has settled into her position as the grieving widow; Archie can’t help thinking a few snide thoughts about her when Mr. Gold reappears. He stumbles out of the forest one night and collapses in the snow of Archie’s backyard.

“Oh, God,” says Archie only moments later, when he lets Pongo out and sees Mr. Gold struggling to his knees. “Oh, Jesus—”

He runs forward, grabs Mr. Gold by the armpits and pulls him up; Gold goes limp against him, seeming to lose all energy. He’s hardly dressed; Gold wears a tattered dress shirt, the one he’d gone missing in, and a pair of boxer-briefs, and both articles of clothing are wet through with snow. Archie grits his teeth and drags Mr. Gold into the house.

In the warmth, Gold begins shaking again, his eyes flickering open, dark and shadowed, to look at Archie.

“OK,” Archie breathes, hauling Mr. Gold into the bathroom and setting him down on the edge of the tub. “Mr. Gold, I’m going to put you in the bath for a bit, OK? To warm you up.”

Gold’s eyes slide closed again; his teeth are chattering, and it takes him a few moments to stutter out a response.

“D-Don’t … t-take me to … the h-hospital.”

Archie makes a silent but firm decision to disobey that order. He wraps one hand around Gold’s shoulders — icy-cold — and reaches past him to turn the water on. It gushes into the tub and he puts the stopper in, then eyes Gold.

“Can you get in the tub?” Archie asks. He rests his hands on Gold’s biceps, rubbing slowly, but Gold just shudders. “OK, I’m going to help you in. All right? Don’t be scared.”

He brought his hands down to Gold’s waist and put pressure there, gently pushing him back until Gold’s balance was disrupted and he slid backwards into the tub, into the shallow pool of water. Archie didn’t bother to undress him. He let the tub fill up, rolled up the sleeves of his sweater, and set to work rubbing life into Gold’s limbs and chest. Gold leaned into the touch and slowly, with the warmth of the water and Archie’s hands, stopped shivering so hard and managed to speak without stammering.

“Don’t take me to Belle,” he said, an echo of his earlier request. “I’m not hurt. She doesn’t need to know yet.”

“She doesn’t need to know that you’re alive?”

Gold shuddered. Archie plunged his hand into the water by Gold’s feet and grabbed at the metal ring of the plug, pulling it out and setting it, dripping, at the edge of the tub.

“I’m gonna go get you some pajamas,” Archie said, ducking out of the room for a minute. He came back to find Gold bracing himself on the edge of the tub, trying to get to his feet. Archie set the pajamas on the toilet seat and grabbed Gold by the arms, helping him out.

“Here,” he said, presenting the dry clothes as an offering. “Change into these — do you need help?”

Gold leaned against the wall and started peeling off his shirt, not answering. Archie forced an over-sized sweater over the other man’s head and looked away when Gold took his boxers off and kicked them away. Archie handed him the pajamas pants and Gold pulled them on, his hand on Archie’s shoulder for support. When he pulled away, Archie missed the warmth.

“Come on,” he said, turning with a ‘follow me’ gesture. “I’ll fix you something to eat, and we can talk.” He led the way down the hall to the kitchen, snatched a skillet off the wall while Gold settled in at the table. Archie found a can of chicken noodle nestled in the back of his cupboard and tried to keep his happy grin in check.

The can opener filled the room with an awful grinding noise. Gold pulled his sweater closer around him and studied the table while Archie poured the soup into the pan and flicked the stove on. With a quiet sigh, Archie left the soup to boil and joined Gold at the table.

“You’ve been gone for seven months now,” said Archie conversationally. “The search is still going on, technically, but I think everyone has given up hope. Belle went into mourning — um, back in September, I think.”

Gold nodded. He was tracing patterns on the tabletop with his pointer finger.

“So, uh,” said Archie, eyes flickering to the stove and back, “what — what happened? Exactly?”

Gold glanced up at him briefly, his eyes hooded. “You still want to take me to the hospital, don’t you,” he said, not really a question. Archie blinked, too surprised to lie.

“How did you—?”

“I know you. Not very well, perhaps, but sufficiently. If you were really going to let me stay, you’d have asked if I’m hurt. And you would have insisted on seeing to any wounds I might have. Instead, you’re just going to feed me and then shuttle me off.”

Archie couldn’t help feeling a little guilty at that, ridiculous though it was.

“I’ll make you a deal,” said Gold, eyes sharp. “If you take me to the hospital, I will not tell anyone where I have been. I will return to my previous life without pause, refusing to think on what’s happened, refusing to acknowledge it.”

Archie leaned back from the table. He could see where this was going.

“If you _ don’t _ take me to the hospital,” said Mr. Gold, “or otherwise force or coerce me to go, I will talk to you about these last seven months, answer whatever questions you have, let you play mother hen all you desire.”

“You’re literally using my conscience against my conscience right now,” said Archie. “Physical health versus mental.”

Gold sniffed lightly and cast an emotionless look at the chicken soup. “I think we can both agree that my mental stability is in a far greater state of disrepair than its physical counterpart at the moment. All I’ve got right now is …” He shrugged both bodily and facially, looking tiny and fragile in Archie’s sweater. “... some cuts, some bruises, and a whole lot of mental scars.”

He flashed a grin that looked sharp and painful, and Archie tried not to wince.

“You promise me you’re not hurt?” Archie asked. Gold crossed his heart, eyes wide and mockingly innocent. “Then it’s a deal,” said Archie. He reached across the table for a handshake, but Gold’s fingers barely made contact with his before pulling away. Archie could hear the soup bubbling on the stove, so he took care of that before anything else, pouring every last drop of it into a bowl that he placed directly in front of Gold. He watched Gold grasp the spoon clumsily, like it was a foreign object, something he’d never seen before.

“You can just drink from the bowl,” said Archie in an embarrassed murmur. “If that’s easier. It’s hard to grip things when your fingers are cold.”

Gold gave him a pointed and exasperated glare. “I’m having trouble because I haven’t used silverware in nearly a year,” he said, “not because my _ fingers are cold_.”

Archie nodded tactfully — of course, Mr. Gold wouldn’t get embarrassed about these things as easily as others. If he did, he never would’ve become the scourge of Storybrooke.

“Regina’s still mayor,” said Archie, resolving to catch Gold up on current events while he ate. “There was an election, while you were gone. And the DA, Mr. Spencer, he moved away last month, said he was going to New York. Rosa Clarke took his place.”

Mr. Gold stilled for a moment, shooting Archie a strangely icy, calculating look before concentrating once more on his trembling hand and the spoon he held. Archie watched helplessly as Gold filled it with broth only for the shaking in his hand to empty it again.

“Do you need help?” he asked.

“Not necessary,” said Gold coolly. “I’ve had enough of being spoon-fed.”

He said it with an alarming amount of distaste, and Archie didn’t question him.

“I’ve been to see Belle a few times,” he said instead. “She’s … upset, of course. Sad. But she’s strong, and she’s been handling everything pretty well.”

Gold let out a humorless huff. “I expect so,” he said. “She’s known I’m alive since the start.”

Now, that was a statement that Archie couldn’t let go without questioning.

“I’m sorry?” he said, blinking profusely. Gold slid the bowl of soup away from him, not even halfway done.

“She knows who has me,” he said, then winced and corrected himself. “_Had me_. She even came to visit a few times. Asked after me. Asked if I was done hiding from her. I could hear everything — the ventilation, you know. I was rooms away and one floor down, but I could hear it.”

Archie couldn’t quite reconcile that information with Belle’s image around town -- the grieving widow, the loving wife. He found it hard to believe she’d willingly hide information from the police, especially about her husband’s disappearance, but his personal conflicts of belief weren’t the important topic tonight.

“Who had you?” he asked. Gold rested his cheek on his hand, stared into space with glazed, tired eyes.

“My father,” he said. His eyes shuttered for a moment, and for the first time since Archie had helped him out of the bath, he looked like a man who’d spent seven months in captivity. “He’s … been looking … for me. For a very long time now. And he—” Gold swallowed, glared at nothing. “—managed to find me, once before, but I got away. So this time he was taking no chances.”

He leaned back from the table with a sigh, let his hand drop down to smack against the wood. “I’m sorry, do you have anything to drink?”

Archie’s mouth opened and closed, but before he could get an answer out, Gold was saying, “Nevermind, I’d just...” and continuing with his story.

“Anyway,” he said, a crease appearing between his eyebrows, “he, uh, he brought me to his house — this farmhouse, I don’t think it’s really his, I think he’s a squatter — and put me in the cellar. Had this little cage, big enough to stand up in, big enough to lie down in if you curled up a bit. Full of straw. That’s where I’ve been.”

“In a cage,” Archie repeated. “In a cellar.”

Gold nodded, nose wrinkled. He held up his wrist, jerking the cuff of Archie’s sweater down. There were pale pink scratches up and down his forearm, looking irritated but not harmful. “That’s from the straw. It’s what I slept on. He’d let me out, sometimes, to … well.” There was real hesitation evident in Gold’s face and voice. “He’s a very controlling man,” Gold said eventually. “And … he has … his issues. I’ve known since childhood. He — when I was little, he would treat me … like an adult. Someone with a full-grown mind and body. So he could treat me like he treated all _ other _ adults, which was … without an exception, it was callous, and it was … harmful, and abusive, and sexual.”

Gold’s face twitched and he shifted nervously, avoiding Archie’s sympathetic gaze.

“Not much has changed,” said Gold bitterly. “He started out with this — this narrative, that he was looking for my forgiveness, and that he was treating me well. And I was expected to play along with this while he was starving me, keeping me in a cage, r—” He cut himself off with a hard swallow and a futile gesture, finally forcing himself to finish. “Raping me.”

Archie felt frozen in his seat, knowing that if anyone in the world needed comfort right now, it was Gold, and knowing too that Gold would refuse it if he offered.

“I started to like it, after a while,” said Gold with a painful smile, his voice suddenly thick and his eyes glistening. “After a few months. I didn’t like it — you know, _during_ — but _after_, he’d — well, he’d sort of h-hold me.” Gold’s voice cracked at the end of the sentence and he paused, took a deep breath, carried on. “And he’d be kind. He’d let me out of the cage and — he’d make me something to eat, and — bathe me, let me take a bath. And afterward, sometimes, he’d let me sleep with him, in a bed, instead of in the cellar, on the floor.”

Gold sniffed and averted his eyes, hands coming up so he could fold them in front of his face and pretend he wasn’t crying. Archie’s heart was aching.

“I don’t want to see Belle,” Gold said, his voice barely a whisper, his eyes wet. “She knew where I was. She went there, and she — she never asked to see me. Never even tried. She just wanted to know, every time, if I’d ‘apologized yet.’ I don’t even remember what it is I’m supposed to be sorry for. I didn’t even think she was mad at me, until I heard her say that, and every time she asked, my Da said no, and she would just leave …”

“Oh, Jesus,” Archie whispered. He stood up, walked around the table to where Gold was sitting, and to his surprise Gold turned to face him, making it a hundred times easier for Archie to pull him into a hug. “OK,” Archie said, rubbing his hands up and down Gold’s back. “OK, you’re all right. I got you. I got you.”

Gold sniffed; he laid his head against Archie’s chest, and Archie knew without asking that Gold was listening to his heartbeat. Gold’s fingers — long and slender — were curled in Archie’s sweater.

They stayed that way until Gold stopped crying — it was a solid five minutes, and it felt much longer than that. When Gold finally pulled away, he looked tired enough to fall asleep on the spot.

“Let’s get you to bed,” said Archie gently. “We can talk later.”

He stood up and then, when Gold made no move to follow him, hooked his hands under Gold’s arms and lifted him up from the chair. Gold stumbled once, leaning heavily on Archie, who was quickly re-thinking his plan - he’d meant to put Gold in the guest room upstairs, but he wasn’t sure Gold could take anymore climbing.

“Down this way,” Archie murmured, leading Gold to his own bedroom instead. He sat Gold down on the bed, glad he was already wearing pajamas. Gold flopped backwards onto the pillow, not even bothering with the blankets.

“Do you want me to stay here or go upstairs?” Archie asked.

“Stay here,” Gold murmured. Archie nodded and moved toward an armchair in the corner, meaning to pull it closer to the bed — but before he could, Gold shifted to the side, leaving the majority of the mattress free.

Archie went still, one hand on the back of the chair, staring at Gold with a blank face. Did Gold … want Archie to sleep with him? Well, it was rare, but not unheard of for rape survivors to seek human touch immediately after the fact. More frequently, they pushed people away … but Gold was odd, regardless of the situation.

Archie approached the bed hesitantly, turning off the lights as he went and lowering himself onto it like the mattress was made of glass. He pulled the blankets over himself and Gold and stayed stretched out like a rigid board on the edge of the bed, waiting for Gold to dictate how they would sleep. It was several minutes before Gold, already falling asleep, rolled over and pressed himself into Archie’s side.

_ Like a clingy koala_, Archie thought.

“Thank you,” Gold murmured. Archie swallowed hard and nodded.

“No problem,” he said. 

He tried to stay perfectly still until Gold fell asleep — it didn’t take long. Within minutes, the tension went out of Gold’s body and his breathing evened out; Archie had not at all imagined going to bed with Mr. Gold today; he hadn’t even imagined _ seeing _Mr. Gold today, or ever again to be frank.

There was no way for him to process the things he’d heard today. He suspected it would take him a lifetime to sort through them, and he could scarcely begin to think of a plan of action for tomorrow.

For now, all he could do was lay there, glad that Gold was safe, glad that he could be some small comfort until dawn.


End file.
